1. Technical Field
The present inventions relate to reels and, more particularly, relate to a material for wrapping around a payload carried on a reel.
2. Description of the Related Art
A wide variety of products are shipped and stored on a reel, also known as a spool or bobbin. Examples of such products include wire, cable, thermocouple, fiber optics, rope, cord, and other costly material.
When these reels are shipped, the product payload, such as the wire on the spool, became damaged, for example, by a forklift fork. Replacement of the damaged products caused economic repercussions.
Attempts have been made to protect the product payload on a reel during shipment. Nevertheless shipping material on reels and providing effective protection was not always feasible. Over protection of the product amounted to additional cost such as labor, packaging equipment, nails or screws, pallets/skids. This adds additional weight which increased shipping cost. For example see the heavy wood lagging used in U.S. Pat. No. 4,850,487.
Some attempts to protect the product payload on a reel required wooden reels. This was impractical because today plastic and steel reels are sometimes required for over sea shipments, were wooden spools are forbidden.
One effective protection approach applied lagging to a reel which needed a wooden reel and additional equipment such as a nail gun, nails, and air compressor, for instance. Wood lagging added weight, was labor intensive in application, and removal and was not an environment friendly application.
Another approach was to ship all reels strapped onto pallets. When a reel was on a pallet, a forklift would lift the pallet without touching the reel. Pallets, however, consumed more space in shipping compartments than bare reels. Often one pallet would contain multiple reels. Palleted reels were also more difficult to sort distribute when multiple reels are on a single pallet.
Other approached have been tried but were either unworkable to suffered form problems including those mentioned above.
As such, there is a need in the art for such a product that addresses the problem presented by the exposed payload product on a reel. Damage from forklifts is common and may go undetected until the product is subsequently used. Thus it's critical to minimize unintentional damage and concealed forklift damage during transportation and or storage.